Research Paper

The Influence of Social Network Business Perspectives and Research

1­–19
Characteristics on the Purchase © 2021 K. J. Somaiya Institute of
Management, Mumbai, India
Intention Reprints and permissions:
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DOI: 10.1177/22785337211009661
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Milad Farzin1 , Rahman Ghaffari2, and Majid Fattahi1

Abstract
Social network sites (SNSs) are an online platform which people apply to make social bonds or social
relationship with their peers who share the same career or personal interests, activities, contexts
or real-life relationships. The present research explores the features of SNSs that have a bearing on
consumer purchase behavior in the Iranian context. The research constructs were measured, profiting
from the existing marketing and social psychology theories. The research sample was selected for the
college students using simple random sampling. For the test of the research hypotheses, the structural
equation modeling technique was applied in SmartPLS software. The results indicated that the SNSs
associated features such as reduced perceived risk and consumer trust influenced their purchase
intention in such virtual contexts. In addition, usability, dependency, and involvement were variables
that affected the level of trust of consumers and their perceived risk in SNSs. Moreover, designers
of such platforms can enhance the usability of the platform by upgrading openness, accessibility, and
speed. This study by creating a better understanding of consumer online shopping behavior in SNSs
contributes to the marketing literature. This insight could be used by marketers and advertisers in the
formulation and implementation of effective and coherent marketing and advertising strategies.

Keywords
Social networks, purchase intention, perceived risk, perceived value, trust

Consumers today increasingly make use of technology as a strong tool supporting their buying decisions.
Shopping has been always a social experience and social network sites (SNSs) make it possible for
consumers to interact and communicate with other consumers many of whom are sometimes strangers

1 Department of Business Management, Sari Branch, Islamic Azad University, Sari, Iran.
2 Department of Management, Sari Branch, Islamic Azad University, Sari, Iran.

Corresponding author:
Milad Farzin, Department of Business Management, Sari Branch, Islamic Azad University, Mazandaran Province, Farah Abad
Road, Sari, Iran.
E-mails: Milad.farzin@srbiau.ac.ir, Milad.farzin85@gmail.com
2 Business Perspectives and Research

(Farzin et al., 2020). SNSs not only influence buying decisions (Hudson & Thal, 2013) but also provide
consumers with platforms to advocate their favorite stores, brands, or products (Guo & Saxton, 2014).
Although such advocacy and support has always existed among consumers, SNSs have given it special
importance by promoting access to the audience (Litt, 2012).
SNSs have turned into a major communication channel worldwide (Brown et al., 2007), and
increasing use of these networks has brought about changes in the consumer shopping process (Kim &
Ko, 2012). Consumers are drawn to SNSs to have access to product or brand information and knowing
about opinions of other consumers (Chu & Kim, 2011), while disseminating their market experience
and information in online environments such as SNSs (Lin & Lu, 2011; Stieglitz & Deng-Xuan, 2013).
This new marketing communication tool, next to the opportunities, has posed new challenges to
companies, since the information content available in these networks is for greater part produced by
consumers (Shao, 2009), and their purchase decisions are increasingly influenced by their interactions
in these networks (Hudson & Thal, 2013; See-To & Ho, 2014). Yet, despite the existing uncertainty and
risk of failure, companies cannot accept to endanger their position by not being present in such
communication channels and every year they spend more on advertising in this area (Chu, 2011; Saxena
& Khanna, 2013).
The ongoing fever of SNSs indicates that s-shopping represents the core of future e-commerce
opportunities. For academics, it should be one of the most crucial and challenging research subjects,
which bears values of great theoretical and practical significance (Al-Tit et al., 2020). Although some
studies have considered the main reasons for the acceptance of social commerce by consumers, the
literature does not provide a clear understanding of the factors influencing consumer participation in
social commerce (Maia et al., 2018), which shows that more studies are required in this field (Friedrich,
2016). Nonetheless, despite the increased practical importance of social media and its impact on purchase
intention, particularly in the online context, this aspect of business marketing has been under-researched
(e.g., Farzin & Fattahi, 2018; Farzin et al., 2020), and studies undertaken to date have only covered a
small number of issues in this regard (Hu et al., 2016). Given the lack of studies conducted in this area,
the current study thus aims to investigate the effect of SNS characteristics on consumer purchase
intention. In addition, this study also aims to investigate the underlying mechanism of cognitive response
on the relationship between social network characteristics and consumer purchase intention.
Therefore, given the significance of consumers’ purchase intentions on SNSs and the lack of theoretical
and empirical insights on the issue, in this article we explore the factors that may affect consumers’
purchase intentions. Specifically, we adopt an environmental psychology perspective and employ the
stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model which offers a parsimonious yet structured method (Chen &
Yao, 2018) that allows us to examine how the SNSs features affect consumers’ internal responses and
contribute to their purchase intentions. As a result, a comprehensive research model reflecting the
interrelations between SNSs features, cognitive reactions, and purchase intention was developed. This
study by creating a better understanding of consumer online shopping behavior in SNSs contributes to
the marketing literature. This insight could be used by marketers and advertisers in the formulation and
implementation of effective and coherent strategies.

Literature Review and Hypotheses Development

We believe a significant advancement in research on predicting technology adoption and other behaviors
can be made through applying the advice of Hansen et al. (2018, p. 5) that “A set of factors, when
considered together, can sometimes yield a more interpretable and theoretically interesting pattern than
Farzin et al. 3

any of the factors would show in isolation.” In that vein, the question arises here: how can the combination
of the theories (e.g., Trust Transfer theory, Social Presence Theory, Social Exchange Theory, Social
Interaction Theory, Utility Theory, Technology Acceptance Model, and Media System Dependency
Theory) better help us to understand consumer decision making?
The theoretical foundation for this research is derived from the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R)
model. The S-O-R model posits that environmental and informational cues act as stimuli that affect an
individual’s cognitive and affective reactions, which, in turn, affect behavioral intentions (Liu et al.,
2018). The S-O-R model conceptualizes consumers’ responses to consumption environments, allowing
researchers to better understand the complicated process behind consumers’ responses and decisions
(Chen & Yao, 2018). Adopting the S-O-R model in studying consumer behaviors helps differentiate
environmental stimuli and consumers’ internal and external behaviors. The S-O-R model provides a
simple and comprehensive way to examine the impact of the SNSs features as stimuli, the internal
reactions as an organism, and the purchase intention as an outcome among SNSs users (see Figure 1).
Thus in this section, the research model and hypotheses were built based on relevant theories.

Purchase Intention, Trust, Perceived Value, and Perceived Risk

Customer intention to buy a particular product, service or brand is indicated as purchase intention.
Purchase intention is seen as the most precise antecedent of actual buying behavior (Farzin & Fattahi,
2018). Consumers seek their peers’ comments and online reviews while collecting knowledge and
information on brands before purchase (Farzin et al., 2020). Consumers generally use these online
reviews on SNSs to determine whether they would trust the brand in online transactions. In online
platforms like SNSs, consumer comments in the seller’s profiles have a significant influence on the
closing price of online sales (Farzin & Fattahi, 2018), which indicates the impact of SNSs reviews on
consumers’ willingness to buy of online bidders in virtual contexts.
In the marketing literature, it was in the field of relationship marketing that the construct trust was for
the first time investigated (Sharma et al., 2019). Trust is a factor that influences the purchase intention of
SNSs users (Sharma & Klein, 2020). Researchers describe trust as an individual’s trigger to follow and
act on the advice and information provided by other individuals (Farzin & Fattahi, 2018). Trust plays a
significant role in inciting individuals to communicate their judgments, experience, and viewpoints
regarding products and brands (Sharma et al., 2019). Other researchers showed that consumers perceive
the generated content by their peers as a more dependable information source compared to the produced

Stimulus Organism Response

SNSs features Cognitive reactions Purchase intention

Figure 1. Theoretical Framework.

Source: The authors.
4 Business Perspectives and Research

content by marketers and advertising agents (Al-Tit et al., 2020; Aslam et al., 2020). And since the existing
information in SNSs is of the former type, trust can have a crucial effect on a consumer buying decision.
Studies show that if consumers trust online retailers, they are less likely to search for information about
these online stores (Sharma et al., 2019). And this reduces the search time for the selection of an online
seller (Al-Tit et al., 2020) and increments consumer perceived value within online shopping (Aslam et al.,
2020), as perceived trust decreases the non-monetary cost of a transaction (Chen & Chang, 2012).
Perceived value could be described as the individual evaluation of the gained benefits versus the paid
expenses in the purchasing process (Wang & Wang, 2010). According to the utility theory, when received
benefits exceed paid expenses by consumers for a product or service, the likelihood of buying that
product or service increases (Sharma & Klein, 2020). In the area of e-business, numerous studies have
documented a relationship between perceived value and buying intention (e.g., de Morais Watanabe et
al., 2020; Martins et al., 2019; Sharma & Klein, 2020). In this study, too, we attempted to test and
demonstrate the likely association between perceived value and purchase intention in the SNSs setting.
In addition, previous studies have shown that consumer trust in product quality evaluation reduces the
perceived risk (Wang & Wang, 2010).
Perceived risk refers to indeterminacy on potential consequences of behavior and eventual failure and
dissatisfaction with those results (Rehman et al., 2020) and demonstrates consumer doubt about losses
in a specific transaction (Hansen et al., 2018). Since in virtual environments, it is not possible for
consumers to test products physically, shopping in the context of SNSs seems even riskier (Rehman et
al., 2020), which undoubtedly would affect their buying decisions. Yet, while the online shopping
perceived risk may be high, the high perceived value of a product of an excellent offer by the seller could
be so tempting that consumer is no longer able to resist the decision to buy (Chang & Tseng, 2013),
eventually making them purchase the product or accept the offer. That is to say, if the perceived risk is
considered the cost the consumer should pay, the consumer would decide to buy when his expected
benefits (i.e., perceived value) exceeds his potential loss or cost (i.e., perceived risk) as a result of
product purchase. Now, according to the literature discussed above, the following hypotheses are posited:

H1 There is a positive and significant relationship between user trust in SNSs and purchase intention.

H2 There is a positive and significant relationship between user trust in SNSs and the perceived value of
SNSs.

H3 There is a positive and significant relationship between user perceived value of SNSs and purchase
intention.

H4 There is a positive and significant relationship between user perceived value and reduced perceived risk
of SNSs.

H5 There is a positive and significant relationship between user reduced perceived risk of SNSs and purchase
intention.

Sociability
One of the key functions of SNSs is sociability (Fang & Li, 2020). Researchers identify sociability with
two features of community and connectedness which best reflect the main function of SNSs in providing
sociability (Maloney-Krichmar & Preece, 2005). The emergence of SNSs, in the first step, provides
Farzin et al. 5

people with the opportunity to build virtual communities constituting individuals who share similar
interests (Lu et al., 2016). Next, those individuals with market expertise, experience or knowledge raise
discussions, and this, in turn, would result in trust, increased perceived value, and reduced perceived risk
among members of such communities (Fang & Li, 2020; Hansen et al., 2018). Thus, the next hypotheses
are posited as follows:

H6 There is a positive and significant relationship between user sociability and trust in SNSs.

H7 There is a positive and significant relationship between user sociability and perceived value in SNSs.

H8 There is a positive and significant relationship between user sociability and reduced perceived risk.

Usability
Usability implies the ability of a technical system which is easily and efficiently applied by users to
performing their roles such as seeking and contributing knowledge (Bringula, 2016; Martínez-Sal et al.,
2020). Many scholars have employed the Technology Acceptance Model to examine the level to which
a technology is accepted and used by people and its consequences or implications for user’s behaviors
and tendencies. One implication of this theory is that a technology which is put at disposal of users may
be found useful by them, yet the difficulty of its use and benefits of its use weighted against the effort
they make in order to utilize it would affect their overall perception of that technology (Ismailova &
Kimsanova, 2017). Accordingly, in the present study, we use this model to measure usability of SNSs, as
social media and networks are treated as a modern appearance of Internet technology and as a
communication means which requires the user’s general knowledge of the Internet and computer
technology (Farzin et al., 2020). Studies suggest that the user’s experience of information accessibility,
speed of information search, and the medium openness and free being in terms of creating a user account
and membership in it and sending comments are three core features of SNSs usability (Pearson &
Pearson, 2008). These features can affect the user perception of their trust, perceived risk, perceived
value, and confidence regarding SNSs. Consistent with the above theoretical background, the next
hypotheses are put forth:

H9 There is a positive and significant relationship between SNSs usability and user trust in these networks.

H10 There is a positive and significant relationship between SNSs usability and user perceived value of SNSs.

H11 There is a positive and significant relationship between SNSs usability and reduced user perceived risk.

Dependence
The media system dependency theory (MSDT) provides a theoretical framework for the study of the
trilateral interrelationship between audience, medium, and society (Zhang & Zhong, 2020). This theory
basically proposes that the more an individual relies on a medium to meet one’s personal and social
needs, the main media will be in a person’s life (Carillo et al., 2017), and as a result of it, a person may
undergo cognitive, emotional, and behavioral changes. The research conducted in the area of the Internet
6 Business Perspectives and Research

shows that the user dependency on the Internet has affected their online activities such as product
information search (Chu & Kim, 2011) and their online shopping experience (Carillo et al., 2017). The
MDST also has been used to investigate consumer shopping behavior via mobile devices (Gentina &
Rowe, 2020). Now, in this study, we are going to apply this theory in the SNSs setting to examine the
effect of media dependency on consumer perceived risk and perceived value of social media, as well as
consumer trust in SNSs. Hence, the following hypotheses are posited:

H12 There is a positive and significant relationship between user dependency on SNSs and user trust in these
networks.

H13 There is a positive and significant relationship between user dependency on SNSs and user perceived
values of SNSs.

H14 There is a positive and significant relationship between user dependency on SNSs and reduced user
perceived risk of SNSs.

Involvement
While sociability is among the most prominent features of SNSs, this sociability actually occurs when
individuals in these networks collaborate with each other (McClure & Seock, 2020) and become mentally
involved with other members (Sharma & Klein, 2020). The studies focused on the influence of
interactions among users on their buying behavior on social media suggested that with an increase of
communication and conversation between consumers in these networks, more information about
products and brands is disseminated among them (McClure & Seock, 2020; Sharma & Klein, 2020)
which is the source of eWOM (Chu & Kim, 2011). We believe that this can affect consumer trust,
perceived value, and perceived risk in SNSs. Hence, the following hypotheses are posited to test the
relationship between consumer involvement and SNSs characteristics.

H15 There is a positive and significant relationship between user involvement with SNSs and user trust in
these networks.

H16 There is a positive and significant relationship between user dependency on SNSs and user perceived
value of these networks.

H17 There is a positive and significant relationship between user dependency on SNSs and reduced user
perceived risk of these networks.

Methodology
The needed data for the test of hypotheses and the relationships between the research variables were
collected through a survey using a questionnaire. Researchers have stated that college and university
students constitute a large portion of SNS users (Farzin & Fattahi, 2018). Our sample consisted of
undergraduate students over the age of 18 at a large Iranian university. Students voluntarily participated
in this study and were incentivized to use extra credit in an introductory information systems course.
Farzin et al. 7

Students are particularly appropriate for testing our hypotheses because the cross-section of Internet
users who shop online and are also active in social networks typically skews toward younger individuals
(Sharma et al., 2019), and they comprise a high-tech generation that is consumption oriented and
sophisticated in online shopping (Sharma & Klein, 2020). With 86% of people between the ages of 18
and 24 participating in social networks (Sharma et al., 2019) and such users representing over half of all
social commerce users (McClure & Seock, 2020), our sample between the ages of 18 and 26 is well
suited for this research.

Measurement
The measures used in this study contained all the principal variables in the suggested model. The
questionnaire items were extracted from prior research, which was adapted to the study context (see Table
2). The required data for measurement of the research constructs were collected by a questionnaire, the
items of which were designed on a 7-point Likert scale varying from “absolutely disagree” to “absolutely
agree”. The next section of the questionnaire was devoted to demographic characteristics of the
respondents, such as the year of admission to the university, age, and gender. In addition, the participants
were requested to write three of the SNSs on which they had an account and used them the most.

Data Collection and Analysis

By applying simple random sampling, 430 questionnaires were distributed among undergraduate
students of Islamic Azad University who spent more than two hours a day on social media platforms and
had agreed to participate in the survey. The use of simple random sampling allowed us to build a
proportionally large sample (n = 430) and avoid potential biases in the sampling process by giving
everyone an equal chance to be selected (Farzin & Fattahi, 2018). Having excluded the flawed
questionnaires, 392 of the collected questionnaires were correctly filled and could be used for the
analysis. This means a return rate of 91% for the questionnaire, indicating a large size and representativeness
of the understudy sample. The reliability of the research constructs was estimated using Cronbach’s α.
The descriptive part of the data analysis was performed in SPSS software, while the inferential part of
the analysis consisting of structural equation modeling (SEM) and partial least squares (PLS) regression
techniques was performed in Smart-PLS software.

Results

Sample Profile
Of the 392 respondents of the questionnaire, 223 were men and 169 were women. The participants were
mostly aged 18–20 years (n = 126). The majority of the participants (n = 126) studied in the third year,
and after them, the second, first and fourth-year students took the second to fourth places, respectively.
The most populated SNSs in which the participants had membership were Instagram, Facebook, and
Twitter. Table 1 summarizes the demographics of the respondents.
8 Business Perspectives and Research

Table 1. Summary Statistics.

Characteristic Frequency Percentage Cumulative Frequency (%)
Gender
Male 223 56.89 56.89
Female 169 43.11 100
Age
18–20 126 32.14 32.14
20–22 113 28.83 60.97
22–24 91 23.21 84.18
24–26 62 15.82 100
Academic Year
Freshmen 93 23.72 23.72
Sophomores 117 29.85 53.57
Juniors 126 32.14 85.71
Seniors 56 14.29 100
Top 3 SNSs
Instagram 349 89 –
Facebook 198 50.51 –
Twitter 126 32.14 –
Source: The authors.
Note: SNS = social network site.

Measurement Model
The suggested model is estimated using the SEM technique, to examine the model’s overall fit and
separate tests of strength and significance for the hypothesized relations between the constructs. These
tests show whether there is an association between antecedents of consumer attitude to SNSs and
consumer purchase intention. Our sample in this study (n = 392) is large enough to justify the use of the
PLS technique, considering the recommended sample size (n = 200) for similar studies (Medsker et al.,
1994). The scale used for the observed variables is continuous, and no violation of multivariate normality
was found in respondents’ answers.
As shown in Table 2, the reliability of the measurement items is confirmed by Cronbach’s α so as the
internal consistency of the constructs in the used model could be examined. Given the calculated
Cronbach’s α in Table 2, which varies from 0.668 to 0.902, is greater than the threshold of 0.6 (Hair et
al., 2014), the consistency level of each construct is acceptable. Next, we assessed convergent and
divergent validity. To establish the convergent validity, three indices were used: composite reliability
(CR) which should be higher than 0.7 (Chin, 1998), average variance extracted (AVE) which should be
greater than 0.5 (Fornell & Larcker, 1981; Hair et al., 2014), and all factor loadings should be greater
than 0.5, as suggested in Hair et al. (2014), or greater than 0.707, as suggested in Chin (1998). As you
see in Table 2, all the necessary conditions for convergent validity are satisfied.
Farzin et al. 9

Table 2. Psychometric Properties of Measures.

Construct Item Loading t-value Mean SD Cronbach’s a
Sociability SO 1 0.852 47.60 4.83 0.923 0.791
Adapted from Fang & Li, 2020; Lu et al., 2016 SO 2 0.893 76.32 5.28 0.907
CR = 0.764; AVE = 0.563; MSV = 0.305; ASV SO 3 0.867 63.46
4.97 0.911
= 0.116
SO 4 0.834 42.53 4.68 0.896
SO 5 0.876 68.33 5.06 0.918
Usability US 1 0.923 112.15 5.53 0.999 0.668
Adapted from Bringula, 2016; Ismailova & US 2 0.855 65.37
5.57 1.042
Kimsanova, 2017
CR = 0.713; AVE = 0.518; MSV = 0.432; ASV US 3 0.878 72.36
4.77 0.891
= 0.184
US 4 0.869 70.19 5.64 0.921
US 5 0.871 54.22 5.69 0.841
US 6 0.877 65.13 4.84 0.868
US 7 0.788 28.19 4.98 0.832
US 8 0.879 64.56 6.37 0.828
US 9 0.835 48.63 5.56 0.861
US 10 0.879 65.25 5.77 1.055
Dependence DE 1 0.920 114.38 4.15 0.893 0.902
Adapted from Gentina & Rowe, 2020 DE 2 0.822 43.70 4.76 0.934
CR = 0.809; AVE = 0.687; MSV = 0.320; ASV DE 3 0.801 83.61
4.41 0.968
= 0.243
Involvement IN 1 0.833 37.45 4.71 0.846 0.884
Adapted from Sharma & Klein, 2020 IN 2 0.922 120.48 4.13 0.884
CR = 0.798; AVE = 0.612; MSV = 0.505; ASV IN 3 0.905 92.36
4.70 0.945
= 0.229
IN 4 0.836 45.50 5.55 0.907
IN 5 0.816 37.21 6.37 0.828
Perceived risk RI 1 0.836 45.50 5.55 0.907 0.690
Adapted from Hansen et al., 2018 RI 2 0.816 37.21 6.37 0.828
CR = 0.762; AVE = 0.503; MSV = 0.205; ASV RI 3 0.802 32.84
4.75 0.897
= 0.118
RI 4 0.869 70.19 5.64 0.921
RI 5 0.812 48.62 5.66 0.941
RI 6 0.778 26.39 4.98 0.832
Perceived value VAL 1 0.871 54.22 5.69 0.841 0.724
Adapted from Sharma & Klein, 2020 VAL 2 0.867 62.26 4.73 0.868
CR = 0.724; AVE = 0.534; MSV = 0.152; ASV VAL 3 0.907 85.47
5.78 0.944
= 0.117
(Table 2 continued)
10 Business Perspectives and Research

(Table 2 continued)
Construct Item Loading t-value Mean SD Cronbach’s a
Trust TR 1 0.873 62.95 4.95 0.869 0.774
Adapted from Farzin & Fattahi, 2018; Hansen TR 2 0.895 90.36
6.24 0.792
et al., 2018
CR = 0.743; AVE = 0.512; MSV = 0.318; ASV TR 3 0.812 36.98
5.64 0.970
= 0.155
TR 4 0.847 49.70 4.93 0.953
Purchase intention PI1 0.917 73.23 6.42 0.755 0.823
Adapted from Farzin & Fattahi, 2018 PI2 0.912 67.95 6.30 0.953
CR = 0.789; AVE = 0.601; MSV = 0.504; ASV PI3 0.923 116.31
6.28 1.030
= 0.235
PI4 0.878 52.58 6.08 0.940
Source: The authors.
Notes: CR = composite reliability; AVE = average variance extracted; MSV =  maximum shared squared variance; ASV =
average shared squared variance.

Table 3. Correlation Matrix.

  SO US DE IN RI VAL TR PI
Sociability (SO) 0.750
Usability (US) 0.341 0.719
Dependence (DE) 0.552 0.658 0.829
Involvement (IN) 0.204 0.599 0.566 0.782
Perceived risk (RI) 0.157 0.356 0.325 0.294 0.709
Perceived value (VAL) 0.243 0.237 0.460 0.268 0.453 0.731
Trust (TR) 0.253 0.301 0.431 0.519 0.253 0.390 0.716
Purchase intention (PI) 0.488 0.403 0.375 0.711 0.462 0.264 0.564 0.775
Source: The authors.

Discriminant validity is achieved when AVE is greater than maximum shared squared variance (MSV)
or average shared squared variance (ASV) and is identified by a low correlation between one construct
and other measurement constructs (Fornell & Larcker, 1981), so as the square root of AVE of each
construct is greater than the correlation between them. In Table 3, the square root of AVE is indicated in
bold on the diameter of the table data. Since the square root of AVE of each variable is greater than its
correlation with other constructs, and all AVE higher than MSV and ASV (see Table 2), the conditions
for discriminant validity are satisfied as well. In sum, the results indicated good convergent and
discriminant validity of the research constructs and fitness of these measures for assessment of the
structural model.
Farzin et al. 11

Structural Model
The structural model was examined based on the test of the research model hypotheses. Figure 2 indicates
the proposed model’s overall explanatory power and the standardized path regression coefficients. The
test results indicated the direct effect of the predicting variables on the predicted latent constructs of the
model. To test the significance of each path, a bootstrap resampling procedure was used. The value of the
coefficient of determination (R2) shows the degree to which the variances in the dependent variables are
explained by our model. In our model, 79% of the variance in perceived risk, 74% of the variance in
perceived value, 65% of the variance in trust, and 57% of the variance in purchase intention of consumers
can be explained by R2 (see Figure 2).
The model goodness of fit test statistic indicates that the proposed structural model is reasonably fit
for the data. The model overall fit was examined at the hand of the goodness of fit index (GOF) for which
the three values 0.01, 0.25, and 0.36 are suggested as weak, moderate, and strong fit levels (Wetzels et
al., 2009). The GOF is obtained from the following formula:

=GOF communalities × R 2

In which, the values of communality and R2 are provided in Table 4. The GOF in this research is 0.719
which confirms that the model is reasonably fit and acceptable.
Table 5 summarizes the results on a test of each hypothesis through path analysis which shows the
significance of the hypothesized relationship between constructs. Of the 17 hypotheses presented in this
study, nine were significant at 0.01, two at 0.05, and six were rejected. As seen in Table 5, the perceived
risk and trust of SNSs have an effect on consumer purchase intention; meanwhile, the constructs
usability, dependence, and involvement affect consumer perceived risk and trust of SNSs. Hence,
hypotheses 1, 2, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, and 17 are confirmed and hypotheses 3, 6, 7, 8, 13, and 16 are
rejected in this research.

Figure 2. Standardized Regression Coefficients of the Proposed Model.

Source: The authors.
12 Business Perspectives and Research

Table 4. The Model Overall Goodness of Fit.

 Research Constructs Communality R2
Sociability 0.684
Usability 0.722
Dependence 0.638
Involvement 0.841
Perceived risk 0.697 0.790
Perceived value 0.752 0.742
Trust 0.885 0.655
Purchase intention 0.7 91 0.571
Average 0.751 0.690
Goodness of fit index 0.719
Source: The authors.

Table 5. Test of Research Hypotheses.

Standardized
 Hypotheses Estimate Standard Error T Statistics Ρ
TR -> PI 0.422 0.034 3.716 0.01
TR -> VAL 0.305 0.029 2.901 0.01
VAL -> PI 0.045 0.044 0.389 Reject
VAL -> RI 0.308 0.018 4.023 0.01
RI -> PI 0.346 0.026 3.594 0.01
SO -> TR 0.020 0.057 0.298 Reject
SO -> VAL 0.063 0.050 0.878 Reject
SO -> RI −0.177 0.059 1.639 Reject
US -> TR 0.345 0.015 3.583 0.01
US -> VAL 0.587 0.005 6.953 0.01
US -> RI 0.559 0.020 5.204 0.01
DE -> TR 0.288 0.032 2.313 0.05
DE -> VAL 0.017 0.056 0.167 Reject
DE -> RI 0.239 0.018 2.855 0.01
IN -> TR 0.354 0.021 4.150 0.01
IN -> VAL −0.050 0.043 0.605 Reject
IN -> RI 0.257 0.036 2.023 0.05
Source: The authors.
Note: TR = trust; VAL = perceived value; PI = purchase intention; RI = perceived risk; US = usability; DE = dependence; IN =
involvement.
Farzin et al. 13

Discussion

General Discussion
Trust in SNSs is one of the social relationship constructs which affects consumer purchase intention, in
the sense that the more the SNSs user trust in online and virtual contexts, the more likely they are to
make a purchase (Farzin & Fattahi, 2018), while, on the other hand, the more likely they are to seek for
product or brand information on these networks (Chu & Kim, 2011). Our results indicated a positive
relationship between the members’ perceived trust and their purpose to purchase online in the SNSs
context. The finding is consistent with the findings of Sharma et al. (2019) and Sharma and Klein (2020)
who investigated communication and information exchange through virtual communities. Therefore,
when users have trust in fellow members within SNSs, they are more likely to depend on these relations,
which in turn, can increase trust in market information communicated on SNSs and eventually affect
consumer intention to purchase.
The reduced user perceived risk of SNSs positively affects their purchase intention which is consistent
with prior research (Hansen et al., 2018; Rehman et al., 2020) suggesting that when consumers’ perceived
risk is low, they experience positive emotions and have more eager to shop from the website. On the
other hand, the findings of the study revealed that the consumer perceived value negatively influenced
their perceived risk. That is to say, with an increase in the benefits received by the consumer, their
perceived risk is likely to decrease which is consistent with the research findings stated by Chang and
Tseng (2013). This finding is of high importance to online businesses because of the higher degree of
perceived risk in virtual environments relative to physical stores. In virtual contexts, consumers not only
have to provide their personal information but also should make sure of timely and sound delivery of
online goods.
Our results suggested that the concept of usability which includes three components of openness,
accessibility, and speed does affect user perceived value, trust, and perceived risk on SNSs. This implies
that when consumers on SNSs were convenient and free to state their views and participate in discussions,
their trust in SNSs is boosted and their perceived value increases and eventually their perceived risk is
reduced. Meanwhile, if consumers can quickly reach the information they need in SNSs and browse
through them and can conveniently and quickly communicate with their peers, their trust, and perceived
value of SNSs is increased whereby their perceived risk of these networks is reduced. Further, the results
indicated that specific skills and efforts are required in order to have access and to use SNSs, which
enhance consumer trust and perceived value and relieve the perceived risk of these platforms for users.
With this in view, it is very obvious that the higher the usability of SNSs is, the more attractive the
platform becomes for the user (Bringula, 2016; Martínez-Sal et al., 2020) and, therefore, usability is
associated with the increased use of SNSs. And this increased use and time spending can contribute to
the user increased trust and reduced risk of SNSs. Thus, consumer perception of SNSs usability is
expected to influence the search and dissemination of product and brand information.
Our result regarding people’s dependency on SNSs is consistent with the media dependency theory
(Carillo et al., 2017; Zhang & Zhong, 2020), that is, the more one relies on SNSs, the more one’s trust
and the lower one’s perceived risk becomes. Thus, the more consumers depend on SNSs in which they
are members to get their needed information about products, brands, and market, the more important this
channel becomes in their life, to the extent that it can affect their attitudes and behavioral tendencies. The
results, further, indicated that with the increased consumer involvement with SNSs, their trust increases
whereby their perceived risk is reduced. Thus, the more the consumers can chat about products and
brands, express their views, and share their information and experience of the market, stores, and goods
14 Business Perspectives and Research

in such platforms, and do things like this on SNSs they are members of, the more they get involved with
these networks. It follows that with the increased communication and collaboration between consumers
on these networks, more products and brands information is disseminated among them which affect their
perception regarding trust and risk.

Implications to Theory
This study contributes to the extant marketing literature in several ways. First, most of the prior studies
in SNSs marketing are primarily focused on the effect of SNSs on consumer intention to purchase and
provide little vision into the reasons for the customer’s intention to spend time to diffuse their brand
experience and product knowledge among peers in the SNSs setting. Building on the S-O-R framework,
we have proposed an overarching model that links SNSs features and consumers’ psychological
processing towards purchase intention. Moreover, we contribute to the S-O-R model by enriching the
existing collections of stimuli and organisms and extending the application boundary.
Second, in this research, the reasons for consumer willingness and intention to purchase from SNSs
were explored using social psychology constructs. We believe that there is a considerable difference
between marketing in SNSs contexts with other platforms and online settings, such as emails or weblogs.
Third, while prior studies using ethnographic methods and case studies investigated some of the
constructs in these communities (e.g., Brown et al., 2007; See-To & Ho, 2014), in this study we tried to
examine the relationships between these constructs by quantifying them and performing statistical tests.

Implications to Marketers/Advertisers
The results indicated that SNSs usability influenced trust and contributed to the reduction of the perceived
risk of SNSs. Therefore, companies, allowing for openness, speed of access, and accessibility in
providing relevant information. Answering the questions, and problem solving, can motivate eWOM by
consumers, which can in turn influence trust and perceived risk in other consumers, promoting consumer
trust in the source of advertising. By improving the technical system, which for SNSs it is often known
as a discussion forum system, individuals would be able to communicate their views, send their questions
and present their answers, and help each other. Such improvement also requires introducing methods and
practices for archiving and retrieving the earlier communicated information. People’s perception of
technology usefulness depends on improving its performance which is crucial for its acceptance (Phang
et al., 2009). Today, many consumers are active information seekers and producers of SNSs content,
disseminating their experience and knowledge on their SNSs and advocating their favorite brands and
stores (Farzin & Fattahi, 2018). Therefore, marketers should provide some mechanisms for users, making
information access and retrieval easy and effective.
As consumers pay attention to SNSs ease of use for information search which affects their perception
of SNSs technology, managers of these networks need to facilitate information search and diffusion over
these networks. This can be done by creating a simpler and more consistent interface, enhancing search
performance by providing respective context and options to limit and modify the search. On the other
hand, marketers and advertisers should make an effort to track the information of the consumers who
share their useful information and experience with their peers in terms of a number of posts and usefulness
degree which may result in their fame in the network, affecting thereby consumer sense of trust and
perceived risk. For example, the membership state of users can be determined and classified based on the
Farzin et al. 15

number and type of information they disseminate and titles such as “senior user” can be assigned to them
which is visible to others.
SNSs are generally used by people for interacting with friends and family, not businesses. This means
that businesses need to be very careful about how they use SNSs. A key usability concern is ensuring that
your business’s SNSs messages deliver the audience some benefit. Ways to help deliver this benefit
could consist of focusing on your target audiences, making sure the timing of your SNSs messages is
appropriate, and creating social media messages which are well written for the medium. For instance, we
would recommend posting no more than once a week because if SNSs content is too regular, annoys
most audiences. In addition, SNSs messages should generally have a less formal tone than other ways of
communication and benefit from focusing on a single topic. Furthermore, powerful and informative
words should be used at the start of SNSs content and keep your messages as short as you can.
The results also indicated that consumer dependency on SNSs affects consumer trust and the perceived
risk of SNSs. According to the theory of MSDT, the more individuals depend on medium to satisfy
needs, the more important the medium becomes in the life of individuals and the stronger effect it will
have on the person’s life. This implies that marketers and advertisers should choose a network to which
consumer viscosity is highest. This sense of attachment is not measured only by counting the number of
users in that network, but also by visiting frequency and the time consumers spend on that platform.
However, a high user viscosity does not necessarily guarantee that consumers pay attention to all the
existing information in that platform. Therefore, marketers need to make more use of their attractions to
retain the existing followers and attract new ones, so that consumers always trust the firm in meeting
their needs and getting help from it. For instance, marketers may at first try to clearly establish their
brand and differentiate from other brands with a name, a logo, or core values. Next, providing support
and services such as answering the user questions, problem solving, giving suggestions, and receiving
feedback, they may try to create a long-term relationship with consumers and secure their loyalty.
Meanwhile, marketers can by regularly sending messages, bulletins, and newsletters containing the
latest information about new products, auctions, discount coupons, and the like try to maintain
relationships with consumers.
Active control of marketers is likely to increase consumer cognitive and affective involvement (Jiang
et al., 2010). The results of the present study also showed that interactive features affecting their trust and
perceived risk of SNSs can improve the consumer shopping experience and thereby boost their intention
to purchase. Further, the interaction of marketers with consumers in platforms of virtual networks can
acutely engage them in navigation through the company-specific web pages, especially if products are of
such quality that consumers need to search for more information (e.g., high-tech products) and only by
viewing the available pictures and information on websites of SNSs they cannot make purchase decisions.
To create an interactive environment and stimulate consumer collaboration, marketers and advertisers
can profit from navigation features such as product search, virtual product inspection, or live chat
capability and in this way affect consumer trust and perceived risk of SNSs and stimulate consumer
intention to purchase. Thus, marketers can employ new communication tools to involve users with
products and brand features and increase their brand awareness. For example, they can make virtual
games under SNSs about products and brands of the company to engage consumers in WOM advertising
so that they imagine themselves buying and consuming the company products.
On the other hand, businesses must honestly evaluate whether or not they are able to generate social
media content which will prove attractive to their target audiences. Some types of messages have,
however, proven consistently popular and effective within the SNSs channel. For instance, exclusive
special offers can be a great way to encourage people to stay engaged with your business SNSs presence.
It also guarantees that your social media channel will have unique content. In addition, enjoyment is an
16 Business Perspectives and Research

intrinsic motivator, so it is always good to try and find ways of providing entertaining social media
content. We would recommend focusing on simple ideas rather than large and complicated projects. It
can also be useful to split different types of content between different SNSs platforms, rather than
duplicating everything across all platforms. This is not only because certain content may suit a particular
platform better, but also because it encourages the audience to engage across different platforms.

Limitations and Future Research

Although university students represent the majority of SNSs users, they exactly do not represent the
entire member population of SNSs. According to the Nilsson Social Media Report (2016), the time spent
on SNSs grew by 36% compared to 2015, a large portion of them was of Generation X (35–45). More
research can be done on consumer intention to purchase on SNSs among the age group Generation X, or
intention to purchase can be examined for intergenerational differences. In addition, future research can
be focused on consumer intention to purchase on SNSs across different occupational and cultural groups.
While in this research we sought to identify and propose a well-suited group of antecedents for
consumer purchase intention in the context of SNSs in terms of social relationship and interaction, there
are other factors which are related to motivational and psychological differences, such as altruism or
self-esteem, and need to be considered in future works. Moreover, the impact of SNSs on brand equity
could be investigated for specific brands or groups of products, such as high-tech products or luxury
goods. Furthermore, all the data for the present study were collected through surveys, and therefore
mono-method bias is an issue. Future research should triangulate this data source by gaining qualitative
insight or applying mixed-method approach into the social network characteristics framework. This can
help explore other important constructs that are suitable for this context and explain the purchase
intention process in greater detail.

Conclusion
SNSs use has become a massive societal phenomenon and social platforms permit many commercial
opportunities. In this study, we focused on SNSs features that encourage and stimulate consumer
intention to purchase by affecting their perceptions, and on the users’ individual and social characteristics
that in turn affect SNSs features. In the choice of these factors, it was trying to choose those constructs
that not only differentiate SNSs from other kinds of social media but also are potentially expected to
affect consumer behavior and intention to purchase. For this purpose, we employ the S-O-R model
which allows us to examine how the SNSs features affect consumers’ internal responses and contribute
to their purchase intentions. Based on the findings of our study, we conclude that SNS features such as
usability, dependency, and involvement have a significant effect on the cognitive responses of consumers.
This study also reveals the relationship between trust, perceived value, and perceived risk with consumers’
purchase intention as well as interrelationships of these constructs.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.
Farzin et al. 17

Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD
Milad Farzin https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4328-5734

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